Following a period of isolation at the start of the Lockdown, Adam Caruso met host Matthew Blunderfield online to discuss teaching at ETH Zurich, the work of Pierre Huyghe, and the series of monographs on lesser-known Modernist architects he co-edits with with his partner, Helen Thomas.
"[When we started our practice] we were really interested in the syntax of architecture - how you make a brick wall, how you make an opening - and we believed that the syntax of architecture held within it the culture of architecture. And the reason we concentrated on that rather than the semiotics of architecture is that we didn’t believe so much in a shared language [for architecture to speak symbolically]. We live in a society that’s diverse and globalised, and I’m trying to find positive ways of engaging with those things”
Image: Pierre Huyghe After ALife Ahead Skulptur Projekte Münster, 2017
© flickr / stephane333
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Peter St John talks galleries, ice hockey and awards with Hugh Pearman, editor of the RIBA Journal
The Architecture Foundation presents a week of seminars from 19-22 October 2020 curated by Studio Adam Caruso at ETH Zürich exploring the architecture of crisis. Invited speakers include Carolyn Steel, Summer Islam, Paloma Gormley and others in the disciplines of architecture, politics and economics. Across 9 talks over 4 days, panelists will be asked to reflect upon the unit's posed question: What is Next?
M Leuven presents a major retrospective of the work of the artist Thomas Demand, featuring two works made by the artist in collaboration with Caruso St John: The unrealised Nagelhaus and the soon to be built pavilion at the headquarters of fabric manufacturers Kvadrat in Ebeltoft, Denmark.
Adam Caruso contributes an article to the October Issue of Domus, outlining how on the failure of architecture to address the imbalances of contemporary life has motivated him to look again, in practice and with students at the ETH, at the ideological and programmatic promises of modernism.
Adam Caruso contributes an essay to the Autumn 2020 issue of Superposition, discussing the modernities of Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer’s ADGB Trade Union School, and Jony Ive at Norman Foster's Apple Headquarters seen through the lens of Andreas Gursky.
Lecture
Treffpunkt Gestaltung Im Handwerk
Die Barocken Blätter der Kathedrale
Schweizer Baumuster-Centrale, Zurich, Switzerland
23 January 2020, 6pm
Florian Zierer speaks at the Schweizer Baumuster-Centrale on the subject of the construction of the new chancel at St Gallen Cathedral.
Adam Caruso will participate in the 2020 Bauwelt Kongress, with a lecture entitled 'What is it Worth?', on reading the city and speculating about what its future might hold. The lecture will be followed by a conversation with Kaye Geipel and Lina Ghotmeh.
Teaching
ETH Zurich Seminar Week: What is Next?
New Material Developments
Studio Adam Caruso, ETH Zurich
20 October 2020
with Marlise Blaser, Katharina Lehmann, Summer Islam & Paloma Gormley
Adam Caruso will give an online lecture entitled, 'What Future for the City' as part of the 11th DAAD festival in Bratislava, Slovakia. The lecture will be at 20.00 (CET) and will be followed by a conversation with Architect Henrieta Moravčikova. The festival runs from 26 October to 1 November.
with Lukas Hug & Emi Lorincz
Teaching
ETH Zurich Seminar Week: What is Next?
Measuring Space
Studio Adam Caruso, ETH Zurich
22 October 2020
with Matthias Vollmer, Johannes Rebsamen, Markus Tretheway & Jürg Pulver